Capitalist Corner

November 20, 2007

Hell Hath No Snark Like a Writer Scorned

As the strike stands, the studios are saying there will be no revenues from digital content. This never made sense, as if digital won't have any revenues, than giving writers a percentage of those non-revenues won't cost the studios a dime. But it's not only a nonsensical position, it's also a great, big, lie. Here, let the studios explain:

Comments

This writers struggle is indicative of one of the most important fights in the history of humankind, because what it has resurrected is the ancient battle between those who create, and those who market, promote, distribute and advertise. It's an old flight in this country, where the music producers and movie producers and television producers, have always had the upper hand, because they learned early on that they needed to keep control of the money and the power if they were ever to have any hope of keeping these unpredictable artists in line.

For far too long the people who do the most excruciating job, the job of digging down within themselves and taking what you find their, and creating something beautiful and magical that everyone else wants to experience and have a piece of, have found themselves at the mercy of those who can only come a long after the fact and devise ways to capitalize on what is nothing short of a monumental feat of self exploration and revelation.

In a very real sense these organizations and conglomerates are infinitely more destructive and dangerous than individuals who share files illegally or who haphazardly violate copyrights could ever be, because many of them spend their whole careers sucking the life out of those who do the real work, and grow wealthy upon the fruits of the pain and suffering that all artists must endure -- for that is the price of creation, as every mother will tell you.

Instead of working to construct an equitable symbiosis between artist and businessman where everyone can prosper fairly, they become parasites who feed off writers, directors and performers, and then discard them when they have served their purposes. Their driving force has always been the bottom line, and for the most part they care nothing for what they're selling and marketing, their only concern is, what it will cost to sell and market

This is why there's so much garbage on television, and at the movies, and in the music business. No need to bother with people who are actually talented, when you can just manufacture an artist, or get your brother-in-law to write a script, because they'll work cheap, and they are much easier to control and manipulate than those temperamental artists.

I support the writers in this struggle, because I realize it is a struggle which all creative people will face sooner or later. Someone needs to draw the line in the sand and tell these exploiters, who would rob God himself of the work of Genesis if they could, that they've had their day, and we're going to start rolling back their encroachment into areas where they never had any business in the first place, and relegate them once again to the dirty little grubby back rooms from whence they came, and where they rightly belong.

In the decision for Victor Herbert against Shanley's Restaurant in 1917, ASCAP's first favorable USSC decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes made the following point:

“If the rights under the copyright are infringed only by a performance where money is taken in at the door, they are very imperfectly protected. … If music did not pay it would be given up. If it pays, it pays out of the public’s pocket. Whether it pays or not, the purpose of employing it is profit, and that is enough.”

Similarly, if putting the progams on the internet did not pay, it would be given up, period.

Never seen a more appropriate WOW spam, because bend, that is where the other two million viewers are going. The writers, actors and producers are checking out the self-publishing possibilities of the web and the conglomerates would be wise to tie them down with well-paying contracts before they just go off on their own. Content providers with no content except rerun and old B-movies are dinosaurs in the digital age.

I'm a Californian transplanted to DC, and surprisingly at peace with it. Or at least I was till it started getting colder. Job-wise, I'm the staff writer for The American Prospect. In the past, I've written for the Washington Monthly, the LA Weekly, The LA Times, The New Republic, Slate, The New York Sun, and the Gadflyer. I'm a damn good cook. No, really. Want to know more? E-mail, I'm friendly.